Hi I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop and test software? Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? Latest example: MicroBlaze Working Design with EDK 8.1 Update to EDK 8.2 -> DDR Memory failing (was working with 8.1) Update to EDK 9.1 -> : ./synthesis.sh: line 2: $'\r': command not found !? If Xilinx really does ANY software testing before release things like that should no happen. With ALL latest major releases the "time to first fatal error" from the new install has been less than 20 minutes. This is not acceptable for software that is to be used to develop commercial products. Should i go back to EDK 8.1 for this one design? Antti, who really doesnt want to start another fight to get the buggy xilinx sw to work.
Xilinx software quality - how low can it go ?!
Started by ●April 30, 2007
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
Antti wrote:> Hi > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > and test software? > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad?First level team leaders have the toughest job and are the most difficult to find/hire/promote. A lot of the bugs seem to reflect overstretch at that level.
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
On 30 Apr., 12:09, Tim <t...@nooospam.roockyloogic.com> wrote:> Antti wrote: > > Hi > > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > > and test software? > > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? > > First level team leaders have the toughest job and are the most > difficult to find/hire/promote. A lot of the bugs seem to reflect > overstretch at that level.maybe. this latest issue with EDK 9.1 wasnt so bad in terms of finding a bug- fix workaround this time I found a workaround without spending more then 2 minutes. workaround: 1) Start build in EDK, wait it comes to the error... 2) run XST from commandline... 3) Run again build in EDK, it will now continue with the build... of course every time the netlist build is triggered the manual invokation of XST has to be done... :( In most of the cases I can find workarounds to make failing software to not fail -but this shouldnt be necessary. Antti
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
Well, I find I quite normal, that software has bugs. Even stupid bugs are a reality. OTOH, what really pisses me of are bugs that are known and easy to fix but remain in the software for years anyway. An example like this is the lack of support for the default windows install directory "program files". And the lack of support for the german default user directory "Eigene Dateien". If it really is that hard to support file names with spaces, at least the install script should prevent me from installing to that location. Kolja Sulimma
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
On 30 Apr., 13:49, "comp.arch.fpga" <ksuli...@googlemail.com> wrote:> Well, I find I quite normal, that software has bugs. Even stupid bugs > are a reality. > OTOH, what really pisses me of are bugs that are known and easy to fix > but remain > in the software for years anyway. > > An example like this is the lack of support for the default windows > install directory "program files". > And the lack of support for the german default user directory "Eigene > Dateien". > If it really is that hard to support file names with spaces, at least > the install script should prevent > me from installing to that location. > > Kolja SulimmaEhe.. I remember that I once entered =E4 letter in the comment field of schematic header in the Xilinx Schematic editor. As result the all file was seen as invalid.. Had to use hex editor to change =E4 to a, then it did open again. The EDK 9.1 story isnt ended unfortunatly... I am using now the manual XST trick to pass the build... but the once working 8.1 design, in 9.1 there is not even console printout anymore (it worked in 8.2) and whats even worse the XMD is not able to connect either so cant debug at all... Antti And yes, if anybody asks, I just installed all 9.1 service packs 1.7 GBYTE download!
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
On Apr 30, 3:55 am, Antti <Antti.Luk...@xilant.com> wrote:> Latest example: > MicroBlaze Working Design with EDK 8.1 > Update to EDK 8.2 -> DDR Memory failing (was working with 8.1) > Update to EDK 9.1 -> : > > ./synthesis.sh: line 2: $'\r': command not found > > !? > > If Xilinx really does ANY software testing before release things like > that should no happen.These could be actual functional bugs, but they sound a lot more like version problems - options changing between versions without enough thought put into the impact on existing designs. Looks like there could be issues with both tool options, and perhaps paramaters passed to bundled functional blocks?
Reply by ●April 30, 20072007-04-30
Antti <Antti.Lukats@xilant.com> writes:> Hi > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > and test software? > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? > > Latest example: > MicroBlaze Working Design with EDK 8.1 > Update to EDK 8.2 -> DDR Memory failing (was working with 8.1) > Update to EDK 9.1 -> : > > ./synthesis.sh: line 2: $'\r': command not foundI had that one too - I faffed around for a bit to sort it. I can;t find my notes, but I think I had to downgrade my cygwin bash IIRC, much like we had to do with make in a previous incarnation. To be fair, it broke on my own .bashrc as well - I may have ticked the wrong box on the Cygwin install for DOS/Unix file formats... I currently have: $ bash --version GNU bash, version 2.05.0(1)-release (i686-pc-cygwin) Copyright 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Cheers, Martin -- martin.j.thompson@trw.com TRW Conekt - Consultancy in Engineering, Knowledge and Technology http://www.conekt.net/electronics.html
Reply by ●May 1, 20072007-05-01
On 30 Apr., 16:56, Martin Thompson <martin.j.thomp...@trw.com> wrote:> Antti <Antti.Luk...@xilant.com> writes: > > Hi > > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > > and test software? > > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? > > > Latest example: > > MicroBlaze Working Design with EDK 8.1 > > Update to EDK 8.2 -> DDR Memory failing (was working with 8.1) > > Update to EDK 9.1 -> : > > > ./synthesis.sh: line 2: $'\r': command not found > > I had that one too - I faffed around for a bit to sort it. I can;t > find my notes, but I think I had to downgrade my cygwin bash IIRC, much like > we had to do with make in a previous incarnation. To be fair, it > broke on my own .bashrc as well - I may have ticked the wrong box on > the Cygwin install for DOS/Unix file formats... > > I currently have: > $ bash --version > GNU bash, version 2.05.0(1)-release (i686-pc-cygwin) > Copyright 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > > Cheers, > Martin > > -- > martin.j.thomp...@trw.com > TRW Conekt - Consultancy in Engineering, Knowledge and Technologyhttp://www.conekt.net/electronics.htmlI have messed with my cygwin at all... still same issue. wrote some .bat file to start synthesis where EDK stops build. annoying but useable workaround.. Antti
Reply by ●May 1, 20072007-05-01
"Antti" <Antti.Lukats@xilant.com> wrote in message news:1177923346.082624.133910@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...> Hi > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > and test software? > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? >I don't understand how they manage to write stuff that crashes other apps. I run? And why don't they do regression testing. http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath=24066 just bit me. "This problem is a regression from version 8.2i SP2". And why-o-why does the edit block command in FPGA editor always come up sized as if the block is a CLB from a Spartan II. Every time I open a block, I spend 5-10 seconds resizing and zooming. Others apps seem to be able to remember what size I made pop-up windows. Grrr. Syms.
Reply by ●May 1, 20072007-05-01
On Apr 30, 2:55 am, Antti <Antti.Luk...@xilant.com> wrote:> Hi > > I really dont understand why Xilinx isnt hiring people who can develop > and test software? > Is the world-wide shortage of engineers really that bad? > > Latest example: > MicroBlaze Working Design with EDK 8.1 > Update to EDK 8.2 -> DDR Memory failing (was working with 8.1) > Update to EDK 9.1 -> : > > ./synthesis.sh: line 2: $'\r': command not found > > !? > > If Xilinx really does ANY software testing before release things like > that should no happen. > With ALL latest major releases the "time to first fatal error" from > the new install has been > less than 20 minutes. This is not acceptable for software that is to > be used to develop > commercial products. > > Should i go back to EDK 8.1 for this one design? > > Antti, > who really doesnt want to start another fight to get the buggy xilinx > sw to work.The synthesis error you have reported usually comes from having the newer bash shell installed which no longer accepts the Windows carriage return. Refer to Xilinx Answer Record 24134: http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xil_ans_display.jsp?iLanguageID=1&iCountryID=1&getPagePath=24134 Cheers, Steve
